Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Here's a pretty interesting question from a viewer on my Youtube channel:

DEMCAD, I have a question about my next gun purchase. I﻿ want to get either a Mossberg 100 ATR (308), or a Wasr 7.62x39. If everything did hit the fan say next year, what would be the best one of these two to get?

I'm not qualified to answer that. I'm not a survivalist, nor have I pretended to be an expert. But I will attempt to describe my thinking.

It depends on your situation and what you want to use it for. 308 is a caliber that the U.S. military uses so it should be﻿ easier to find. However, you shouldn't expect to find ammo during a SHTF situation. Since I live in an urban area, I value FIREPOWER over ACCURACY.

After all, if you're in the city or suburbans, any fight you will﻿ get into will be probably be short or medium range. The 308 would be a great sniper weapon, but you're not likely to be using a sniper rifle in an emergency situation. At least not if you're in a city. So I would prefer the AK, because of it's 30 round magazine. The ATR will limit you to 5 rounds or less. Plus, the bolt action will slow down your response time and there's no detachable magazines for a reload. If I were in the country, hunting and shooting range would be a higher priorities, so I would consider the 308.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Information is one of the most powerful tools of the 21st Century. It is as important as gas and electricity and any currency. So when people spread false information or unconfirmed information, it must be taken seriously. Recently, the Oathkeepers published a scary story claiming that federal agents raided a Mormon food cannery in Tennessee, demanding a list of their customers who were storing food.

Now as many of you know, the Oathkeepers is an organization of former (and current) law enforcement and military personnel claiming to uphold the constitution. When the story broke, it spread across the Internet like wild fire and ended up on the Alex Jones show.

The President of the Tennessee Oathkeepers Rand Cardwell wrote,

“A fellow veteran contacted me concerning a new and disturbing development. He had been utilizing a Mormon cannery near his home to purchase bulk food supplies. The man that manages the facility related to him that federal agents had visited the facility and demanded a list of individuals that had been purchasing bulk food. (from Oathkeeper Rand Cardwell

Let's see. He acquired the information from a man who heard it from another guy. What is the definition of hearsay?

unverified, unofficial information gained or acquired from another and not part of one's direct knowledge (from Dictionary.com)

Yep, that's hearsay. This was there only piece of intel and it was second hand. There was no information on which federal agency raided the cannery, who was the primary source, who the secondary source, which cannery was raided? Nothing. Just hearsay. So predicatively, the oathkeepers were forced to withdraw the story, claiming that a witness changed his or her story.

This is the type of crap that will discredit people very quickly. There was no secondary source confirming the intel and the primary source was questionable to begin with. If preppers (people who prepare for emergencies) want to convince people that their cause is sensible, they have to make sure that they protect their credibility. And that can;t happen if they jump on every unconfirmed story that comes down the pipe. Because in our world, information is more important than ever before.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine, claimed that he was stunned when he learned that his brokerage firm (MF Global) didn't have their customers' money. But it was his company. How in the hell could he not know that people were stealing hundreds of millions dollars from their customers. These guys were leveraged 40 to 1. Which in plain English means that they were betting 40 dollars when all they had was one buck. So naturally, when another European crisis popped up, MF Global was toast. And since they used their customers' money, they were left holding the bag.

“There were an extraordinary number of transactions during MF Global’s last few days, and I do not know, for example, whether there were operational errors at MF Global or elsewhere, or whether banks and counterparties have held onto funds that should rightfully have been returned to MF Global,” Corzine claimed.

Really? So either he is a crook or incompetent. Either way, he needs to be held accountable. But I doubt anyone was able to do anything with the money with him knowing. I know this lady who worked at a tax preparation store. Some money disappeared and the manager made everyone pay $20 bucks out of their own pocket to cover the lose. Even though she didn't steal anything, she had to pay.

When I was for a small bail bonds company, 15 bucks was missing from the safe. the boss showed me the receipt and I desperately search the office for the money only to discover that he took the money out of the safe. he was going to make me pay for the lost. So now I'm supposed to believe that hundreds of millions of dollars just walked away. This is garbage. Jon Corzine needs to go to prison and if this type of injustice continues, it's going to lead to a backlash.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

So I came across this docudrama TV special on youtube called "Apocalypse Man". Ex Recon Marine Rudy Reyes takes the audience on a simulated mission through a city during a disaster scenario. It's a simple scenario, one man traveling in a world without water and electricity.

He starts the show off by telling viewers that when a disaster strikes, the first place he's going is to the city. When I heard those words, I burst out in laughter. i guess it depends on the scenario and how many resources he had. He uses a tire iron as a grapple hook to rope himself across a bridge. Rudy swings off the bridge like Tarzan rope and uses his carefully crafted butterfly knot to pull himself up to the other section of the bridge.

Rudy confessed, "I know it looks crazy..." That's because it is crazy. Unless you are in top shape, which most Americans are not, trying to Tarzan your fat ass across a bridge will get you killed or seriously injured. Now, I'm not professing to be an expert in survival. In fact, this guy is in much better shape than I am. However, I know my limitations. In this scenario, I would have been better served staying at home. And if I did decide to leave my house, I would have avoided the cities. And if I were in the cities, I would have looked for a boat, canoe or some floating platform to get to the other side of the river.

I understand that this show was created for entertainment, but I want people to be realistic about their abilities. There's a point where he climbs down a dark elevator shaft. I wouldn't attempt this until the cast from Mad max was after me.

Granted, he has a lot of cool ideas and it's worth watching for fun. I loved his idea about going to the library to get information such as maps and books. But some of his ideas scared me. What disturbed me most about this show is when he enters someone's home with the logic that "it is not longer there home."

He enters a home that appears to have not been broken into. I understand that he was looking for resources, but I'm not willing to risk receiving a large serving of buckshot to my face. You may want to wait until the population drops to "I Am Legend" levels before attempting this.

I'm not saying that his ideas won't work, but they some of them sure as hell won't work for me. I would advise people to apply a filter to this kind of programming, but this is good entertainment. If you have good sense, you'll be able to separate the entertainment from the good ideas. Enjoy!

Friday, December 2, 2011

I was way off on my prediction on the U3 unemployment reaching 12% this year. We didn't see a new wave of layoffs (in the private sector). The official unemployment number actually dropped. However, the real unemployment has not dropped. A lot less people can get benefits, many aren't, even counted. Hiring in the private-sector grew by a 140,000 jobs, the public sector cut 20,000 jobs. What kind of jobs where created this holiday season, 50,000 jobs in retail, 22,000 in hospitality, 33,000 in business service. Does business service involves in actual production of any goods? Where most of the hospitality jobs created that type of work that you can support a family on? Where retail stores hiring full-time or where they offers $8 or $9 bucks an hour, part-time/seasonal with no benefits?

Hourly earnings dipped by 2 cent, while salaries increased by 1.8%, neither could keep up with inflation. In a nutshell, I was wrong about the timing of the new wave of layoffs, but only time will reveal if I am wrong about the event happening at all. Technically, we already saw a major layoff in local, county and state government.s And we did see a lot of Americans shopping on Black Friday. The National Federation Retail claimed that sales increased 16% from last year. Of course, many stores were shut down since then, so the remaining stores would naturally improve. And I should warn you that the 16% is based on a survey and not hard cash. This year, they polled 3,826 consumers and calculated that Americans spent $$52.4 billion on Black Friday weekend.

Nevertheless, many Americans spent their last penny this holiday season on flat screen TVs,video game consoles, toys and movies. I have no aversion to any of those products, but I realize that it is more important to have basic items before you acquire the amenities. For example, doesn't it make more since to have extra food and water for an emergency before you buy another flat screen TV? And why is your girlfriend walking around with expensive jewelry when she doesn't even have a gun to fight off a mugger or rapist? Some people are so tapped out that they are trying to get tax loans to buy presents this holiday season. There's nothing wrong with buying toys and TVs for Christmas, just make sure that your family has the basics for responding to an emergency.

The government numbers are very deceptive. The official unemployment number is really just one of the the government's unemployment numbers. It's called the U3 number, which only calculates how many people are unemployed for 15 weeks or longer. But it excludes part-time workers who want to work full-time and many discouraged workers. The U6 number (15.6% as of November 2011) includes these groups. However, but government numbers exclude the chronically unemployment. The government keeps the unemployment number down by excluding a lot of the unemployment and simply claiming that they are no longer apart of the workforce.

The duration of unemployment tells the story. 59% of the unemployed have been jobless for at least 15 weeks. 43% of the unemployment have been unemployed for over 27 weeks as of November 2011. The employment to population ratio has still remained very low.

In conclusion, the recent data is a reflection of a large portion of the unemployed population being re-classified as non persons, people without jobs, but not apart of the labor force. It's just smoke and mirrors.